Hi everyone I'm Jack Red, I recently came across a rather interesting video. Remember when Midway tried to copy Mortal Kombat?, honestly I had all three of those games on Nintendo 64. I actually have beaten them with one character respectively. Basically during a rough period for Mortal Kombat series, they were desperate enough to start over with a few attempts at a new franchise.
1. War Gods (1996 & most ports in 1997)
Recently, I did a comparison with War Gods against Primal Rage. I actually have something else to say. Thanks to McMuscles for showing Ed Boon's statement on the matter. The Mortal Kombat team had no real involvement with War Gods after all. Although, it still technically true since both War Gods & MK4 are from the same company.
Both of them are among precursors to early 3D fighting games. There is no question Mortal Kombat 4 was the better game. War Gods is centered on gods fighting each other. Over the years, gods have been playable characters in Mortal Kombat series. This is full on god brawl where only one can become the most powerful being in existence.
Sadly, it plays like a poor man's Mortal Kombat game. Well oh okay, I seen some terrible MK rip offs including many I personally didn't get to play. This would be more or less in the middle of the barrel. Which still isn't a good spot to be in. War Gods does have ridiculous heights in some levels. I usually upper cut some of my opponents in a few levels where you can punch them high up in the air.
The concepts behind each character exclude the bosses are kinda interesting. Like most fighting games, each characters exclude the bosses does have a ending where they get the title. Of course, what they will do with that power following their victory. War Gods has terrible controls with horribly done mechanics.
This game attempted to be like Mortal Kombat but even Killer Instinct, Eternal Champions & Primal Rage was a lot closer than this. Also those games does not suck either. I highly recommend them over this piece of filth any day of the week. War Gods is a game they desperately tries to be the next MK game but simply never was.
2. Mace: The Dark Age (1997)
I also did a comparison a while comparison with Mace: The Dark Age against Soul Blade/Soul Edge. Honestly, it did come close to being ported to PlayStation 1 at one point. Simply because it didn't, it actually is the closest to playing Soul Blade on N64. Yes I know there's a lot of major differences. My point is both of them are weapon based fighting games that were originally arcade games.
In my personal opinion, this was the best of the three games. Mace: The Dark Age came the closest to being almost like Mortal Kombat. The characters were a good variety just like Mortal Kombat series. The stories do come off a bit similar in some way. Yes you can kill your opponent, done better than War Gods thankfully.
There is a few hidden characters including those only present on the Nintendo 64 version. Also around this time, MK4 introduced weapon combat to the series. So at the time, this was close to being like the then current state of Mortal Kombat series. It also had some interesting easter eggs, something MK series known for doing.
I actually did get to play the arcade version briefly. I would say this port is good enough to keep me playing. But I felt some fighting games were better. I also loved the art work of this game. Just like most fighting games, each character endings continues following the final boss fight. I felt parts of this world does come off like an MK game.
Mace: The Dark Age was a surprisingly close effort by Midway Games. Although this had the best controls out of the three, it still isn't perfect. I felt Killer Instinct Gold through Rare Replay had better controls than this. I also liked some of the characters including War Mech & Lord Deimos. To me, this might not feel like an MK game, but it does have some strong similarities to it.
3. Bio F.R.E.A.K.S. (1998)
OMG, I never thought I get to talk about one of the strangest fighting games I ever got to play. Bio F.R.E.A.K.S. is a rather ambitious take on the fighting game concept.You get shields as in your character becomes covered by a metallic color for a short period of time. I am used to seeing that in 989 Studios Twisted Metal games I'm not kidding.
Every playable character has a firing weapon, still not known in the genre. Usually it is a handful of characters that uses guns. You also can fly around with some levels having a little depth to them. But beware those same levels have some nasty death traps too. Yes there are other hazards like the final boss level has something like piranhas in the water.
Each character has been modified either to some degree or almost entirely through technology. I felt this moves the furthest away from what an MK game. You can also knock or cut off character limbs predating Mortal Kombat doing that as a feature rather than a finishing move. To clarify, I was actually talking about create a fatality from Mortal Kombat Armageddon.
In other words, you can behead your opponent very quickly to ending the round or match. I hate to say it, this game forces you to play cheap. The AIs at times can be cheap sure. But there isn't much real strategy to do during a match. You could fire away to probably winning the match if you really wanted to.
This game never made it to the arcades. But like War Gods did make it to PlayStation 1. Funny enough, the only platform to play all three of them is Nintendo 64. The sub boss is a mimic character that will represent whoever you're playing as. This thing is mostly a bloody texture version of them called I kid you not Clonus lol.
Did Professor Farnsworth create these things? Some levels are oddly small while others can be a little too big. Yes I'm looking at you the final boss level. Unlike most fighting games, each character endings is more of a quick origin story to explain why they're there. To be honest, this doesn't even feel like a fighting game.
Mortal Kombat is known for it's mythology. Something present in the other two games. This game has some terrible voice acting actually worse than War Gods I'm really not kidding. Bio F.R.E.A.K.S. has some not exciting level designs too. There is no question, this is a game that simply does not work.
I think it is time to determine why they didn't exactly work as possible replacements for Mortal Kombat series.
Now this implies to all three games. There's several reasons they could never truly be a Mortal Kombat game. Mortal Kombat involves characters from several realms or what would be other universes in most fictional universes within their own multiverse. Bio F.R.E.A.K.S. is clearly more of a strange science theme combat.
I felt Mace: The Dark Age came the closest among all three games. It mostly falls short from keeping it in one world. The mechanics wasn't as good as MK4 or Soul Blade. Some levels wouldn't come off what you might expect from an MK game. War Gods focus too much on ridiculous concepts for it's characters.
Well oh okay it isn't the canceled Tattoo Assassins. But it is still pretty ridiculous. I also felt War Gods moves are very similar to each other. It is a challenge to find something one character can do that most can't do. I felt all of them lack the same level of depth as Mortal Kombat series. Clearly, they were on the verge of going out of business that eventually ends a few years later.
Both War Gods and Bio F.R.E.A.K.S. are heavily unbalanced games. None of them has a boss character that stands out in a good way. In fact, quite the opposite that can ruin the experience. Mace: The Dark Age did do interesting but weird easter eggs similar to some degree to MK series. War Gods' cheat menu is similar to some of the older MK games doing that concept.
Mace: The Dark Age also came off as the darkest game. Bio F.R.E.A.K.S. sorta comes more off as a Killer Instinct rip off since both involve corrupt organizations. Obviously, both had a focus on advance technology to a degree. So for me, Bio F.R.E.A.K.S. just doesn't come near to feeling like a true MK game.
War Gods has some of my least favorite levels in all three games. Prove Yourself well close enough to Finish Him/Her. Truthfully, Mace: The Dark Age just fell a bit short of it while the other two fell very hard. War Gods comes more off like a bad joke while Bio F.R.E.A.K.S. was one of those games. You know you must've been high to come up with this crap kind of thing.
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